Pen32Win
June 29th, 2011, 00:13
How Gents;
I know I've been pretty quite as of late but in the past few weeks I've been quietly working in the background on fixing some issues, some new some very old, like 2006. As soon as Pony Express is over I'll get back to my GMax work and the AA Gun Project. I don't like to have to take breaks during those kinds of projects. so with the time I have had this is what's been in the works.
1. Most folks know I'm a Typhoon fanatic. One thing that has long bothered me is now having an airfile/AC.cfg set that works for both the player and the AI's. The existing player sets are just too much to the AI to handle. The AI's can't drop bombs on targets moving in a straight line, strafe ground targets, they couldn't turn with you in normal flight, and they dug all kind of holes in the country side when they tried. On the other side if you used the AI set for the player A/C it was like trying to fly an epileptic seizure. I think I've about got this one nailed. The only issue I have left to figure out is fuel mileage, I'm coming up short. Speed wise she dead on from 1000 to 9000', from 10000 to 17000 she just a tad hot and from 17000 to 22000 she's just a tad slow. With drop tanks the Tiffie should be able to go 1090 miles. I made it 978 flying 60% throttle @ 12,000'. Getting very close.
2. When CK updated all of the textures for the Stock objects for the ETO it had some unintend results. Several of my old buildings utilized parts of the stock textures to save on the number of textures CFS2 had to load. You'll see this on several of the Green Airfield buildings, these end up different but not bad, and on the 3 Admin Buildings. The Admin buildings end up with white walls. So I updated the GMax files, created new textures and recompiled them. All fixed!!! With any luck I'll have these out Monday.
3. This one dates all the way back to my TAF Airfield Project that I abandon because of some issues with ground elements. Polygons and layered background images were floating up over any object you placed on them. As you gained Altitude, so did the ground element. Put simply, the tarmac would swallow up the hangar and aircraft sitting on top of it. It was nasty and it caused me to drop the whole thing. Jump forward 6 years and....... I've got fixes for both the polys and the Layered BG Images. The poly issue was solved by putting a taxiway border around it. The taxiway border holds the shaped poly down on the ground.
The Layered Background Image was something new I tried back then and it looked exceptional and BG Images are very easy on FPS, great idea, sans the "Floaties".....yuck! Basically you have the Main Backgound Image of your Airfield on the bottom, then you layer smaller Backgound Images overtop of it. That's how I got the crisp looking Hardstands, Tarmacks and other paved/concreted areas. I created scaleable images of these Pads and layered them over the Main BG image.
After looking into this closer I noticed only BG images that were not pointed 0* North had the floaties..... I started digging into the SCASM and found that the code was very different for the two, those with no Rotation and those with a Rotation from 1 to 359*. Here's an example from Hawkinge. As usual the Main BG image has no Rotation. Notice the SCASM Code for it and then look at the code for Background Image 2, which has a 318* rotation.
ORIGINAL
; Main Backgound
Area( B N51:06:44.0177 E001:08:32.1929 40 )
RotatedCall( :lblRotated 0 0 0 )
Jump( : )
:lblRotated
RefPoint( rel :lblReturn 1.00 N51:06:44.0177 E001:08:32.1929 V1= 0 V2= 0 )
Points( 0
-1280 0 1280
1280 0 1280
1280 0 -1280
-1280 0 -1280
)
LoadBitmap( 0 5 0 1 1 1 "2taf_hawkinge.bmp" )
Smoothing( 1 )
TexPoly( au 0 0 255 1 255 255 2 255 0 3 0 0 )
Smoothing( 0 )
:lblReturn
Return
EndA
; Background Image 2
Area( B N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 40 )
LayerCall( :lblLayer )
Jump( : )
:lblLayer
RefPoint( rel :lblReturn 1.00 N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 V1= 0 V2= 0 )
RotatedCall( :lblRotated 0 0 318.0 )
Return
:lblRotated
Points( 0
-19 0 19
19 0 19
19 0 -19
-19 0 -19
)
LoadBitmap( 0 5 0 1 1 1 "2taf_con_acpad.bmp" )
Smoothing( 1 )
TexPoly( au 0 0 255 1 255 255 2 255 0 3 0 0 )
Smoothing( 0 )
:lblReturn
Return
EndA
The Layer Call in Red was the culprit..... After removing the code in Red and changing first Return to a Jump the code looks like this.
NEW
; Background Image 2
Area( B N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 40 )
RefPoint( rel : 1.00 N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 V1= 0 V2= 0 )
RotatedCall( :lblRotated 0 0 318.0 )
Jump( : )
:lblRotated
Points( 0
-19 0 19
19 0 19
19 0 -19
-19 0 -19
)
LoadBitmap( 0 5 0 1 1 1 "2taf_con_acpad.bmp" )
Smoothing( 1 )
TexPoly( au 0 0 255 1 255 255 2 255 0 3 0 0 )
Smoothing( 0 )
:lblReturn
Return
EndA
So far I've done Biggin Hill and Hawkinge as tests and they work great!!! They're fully GSL'ed, about 200 objects on each, and I'm pulling about 65 FPS with the whole field in view at 1x mag. So, now I can go back, update them to match the newer mesh and Landclass Roads, Rivers, etc. and finally finish all of the fields I started so long ago... Now if I can only remember how to use PSP...LOL
Have a great weekend gents, I'm getting ready to head out on the trail for a few days and get the Mail through to Prescott. There's nothing like going Postal on Horseback!!! LOL
I know I've been pretty quite as of late but in the past few weeks I've been quietly working in the background on fixing some issues, some new some very old, like 2006. As soon as Pony Express is over I'll get back to my GMax work and the AA Gun Project. I don't like to have to take breaks during those kinds of projects. so with the time I have had this is what's been in the works.
1. Most folks know I'm a Typhoon fanatic. One thing that has long bothered me is now having an airfile/AC.cfg set that works for both the player and the AI's. The existing player sets are just too much to the AI to handle. The AI's can't drop bombs on targets moving in a straight line, strafe ground targets, they couldn't turn with you in normal flight, and they dug all kind of holes in the country side when they tried. On the other side if you used the AI set for the player A/C it was like trying to fly an epileptic seizure. I think I've about got this one nailed. The only issue I have left to figure out is fuel mileage, I'm coming up short. Speed wise she dead on from 1000 to 9000', from 10000 to 17000 she just a tad hot and from 17000 to 22000 she's just a tad slow. With drop tanks the Tiffie should be able to go 1090 miles. I made it 978 flying 60% throttle @ 12,000'. Getting very close.
2. When CK updated all of the textures for the Stock objects for the ETO it had some unintend results. Several of my old buildings utilized parts of the stock textures to save on the number of textures CFS2 had to load. You'll see this on several of the Green Airfield buildings, these end up different but not bad, and on the 3 Admin Buildings. The Admin buildings end up with white walls. So I updated the GMax files, created new textures and recompiled them. All fixed!!! With any luck I'll have these out Monday.
3. This one dates all the way back to my TAF Airfield Project that I abandon because of some issues with ground elements. Polygons and layered background images were floating up over any object you placed on them. As you gained Altitude, so did the ground element. Put simply, the tarmac would swallow up the hangar and aircraft sitting on top of it. It was nasty and it caused me to drop the whole thing. Jump forward 6 years and....... I've got fixes for both the polys and the Layered BG Images. The poly issue was solved by putting a taxiway border around it. The taxiway border holds the shaped poly down on the ground.
The Layered Background Image was something new I tried back then and it looked exceptional and BG Images are very easy on FPS, great idea, sans the "Floaties".....yuck! Basically you have the Main Backgound Image of your Airfield on the bottom, then you layer smaller Backgound Images overtop of it. That's how I got the crisp looking Hardstands, Tarmacks and other paved/concreted areas. I created scaleable images of these Pads and layered them over the Main BG image.
After looking into this closer I noticed only BG images that were not pointed 0* North had the floaties..... I started digging into the SCASM and found that the code was very different for the two, those with no Rotation and those with a Rotation from 1 to 359*. Here's an example from Hawkinge. As usual the Main BG image has no Rotation. Notice the SCASM Code for it and then look at the code for Background Image 2, which has a 318* rotation.
ORIGINAL
; Main Backgound
Area( B N51:06:44.0177 E001:08:32.1929 40 )
RotatedCall( :lblRotated 0 0 0 )
Jump( : )
:lblRotated
RefPoint( rel :lblReturn 1.00 N51:06:44.0177 E001:08:32.1929 V1= 0 V2= 0 )
Points( 0
-1280 0 1280
1280 0 1280
1280 0 -1280
-1280 0 -1280
)
LoadBitmap( 0 5 0 1 1 1 "2taf_hawkinge.bmp" )
Smoothing( 1 )
TexPoly( au 0 0 255 1 255 255 2 255 0 3 0 0 )
Smoothing( 0 )
:lblReturn
Return
EndA
; Background Image 2
Area( B N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 40 )
LayerCall( :lblLayer )
Jump( : )
:lblLayer
RefPoint( rel :lblReturn 1.00 N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 V1= 0 V2= 0 )
RotatedCall( :lblRotated 0 0 318.0 )
Return
:lblRotated
Points( 0
-19 0 19
19 0 19
19 0 -19
-19 0 -19
)
LoadBitmap( 0 5 0 1 1 1 "2taf_con_acpad.bmp" )
Smoothing( 1 )
TexPoly( au 0 0 255 1 255 255 2 255 0 3 0 0 )
Smoothing( 0 )
:lblReturn
Return
EndA
The Layer Call in Red was the culprit..... After removing the code in Red and changing first Return to a Jump the code looks like this.
NEW
; Background Image 2
Area( B N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 40 )
RefPoint( rel : 1.00 N51:07:11.6462 E001:08:33.3449 V1= 0 V2= 0 )
RotatedCall( :lblRotated 0 0 318.0 )
Jump( : )
:lblRotated
Points( 0
-19 0 19
19 0 19
19 0 -19
-19 0 -19
)
LoadBitmap( 0 5 0 1 1 1 "2taf_con_acpad.bmp" )
Smoothing( 1 )
TexPoly( au 0 0 255 1 255 255 2 255 0 3 0 0 )
Smoothing( 0 )
:lblReturn
Return
EndA
So far I've done Biggin Hill and Hawkinge as tests and they work great!!! They're fully GSL'ed, about 200 objects on each, and I'm pulling about 65 FPS with the whole field in view at 1x mag. So, now I can go back, update them to match the newer mesh and Landclass Roads, Rivers, etc. and finally finish all of the fields I started so long ago... Now if I can only remember how to use PSP...LOL
Have a great weekend gents, I'm getting ready to head out on the trail for a few days and get the Mail through to Prescott. There's nothing like going Postal on Horseback!!! LOL